Videoconferencing systems provide a unique aspect to the telecommunication industry—the ability to instantly communicate face-to-face with anybody in the world without requiring either of the participants to travel hundreds or thousands of miles to participate. Videoconferencing systems generally include a local room from which a call originates and a remote room that receives the call. The local room and the remote room are in communication with one another through a network, such as a telephone network. As a caller places a call in the local room, the network connects the remote room to the local room such that one-way communication is established. During one-way communication, identifying information, such as a telephone number or calling location, only travels from the local room to the remote room.
When one-way communication is established, a call receiver (i.e., a person receiving the call in the remote room) receives a message on a remote display monitor that indicates that the caller in the local room would like to establish two-way communication. The call receiver is then prompted to either accept or deny the call. However, the call receiver does not necessarily know the identity of the caller. The call receiver only knows that that someone in the local room would like to connect to the remote room. The call receiver may be able to view the telephone number of the local room, but this alone does not necessarily identify the caller.
Therefore, a videoconferencing system is needed that allows the call receiver to identify the caller by viewing a plurality of images of the caller in real time before accepting the call and establishing two-way communication.